Saturday 8 January 2011

Visitors to RnR during our enforced stay at Gailey on the Staffs & Worc Canal

We hot-footed it here on 25th November as the night time temperature was going to drop like a stone ..
.. and the first snow fall and the ice on the canal arrived the following day!
I do hope that we won't have another winter that starts in November!
3rd December - a welcome visitor opposite Rock n Roll's mooring ...
... and Geoff and Meg from Seyella walked down the towpath from Penkridge where they are also iced in, to say hello
24th December - our son Mark and his family came for a visit - lovely! 
15th December saw Geoff and Mags manage to break the ice from Penkridge and will moor here now for the duration
 17th December, this was the last time we saw these 3 mallards until the canal thawed a little on 6th Jan 1, and then there was only 1 ...
... but the moorhen stayed around for bread or bird seed every day whatever the weather ..
 ... as did the birds to the feeders.
18th December brought heavy snow for most of the day but it didn't deter the birds at all ..
 ... and  through the snow came visitors from our past - it was great to meet up with Ann and Chris again after a lot of years - they both belong to the South Staffordshire Community First Responders (part of West Midlands Ambulance Service) and were on standby for the area; they decided to pay us a surprise visit - it was lovely to catch up on all the gossip! 
This was also the day the big kids went out to play and created another visitor who sat on the towpath for about 2-weeks!
 and then on the 3rd of January 2011 the sun came to visit and the thaw started - wow - it was positively balmy!... 
 ... the robin sat and soaked it all up ...
 ... and the moorhen took advantage of the ice-free water alongside
and then yesterday (7th Jan) we had more snow, but it didn't lie for too long and today the sun has been out again - it was +7 degrees at 5am this morning and 11 at mid-day.  The ice continues to melt and we (Moore2Life, Seyella and ourselves) hope to be on the move early next week - can't wait!!

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